


he'll never keep diaries

by generala (vigilantia)



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Family, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:50:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4451897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vigilantia/pseuds/generala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Post B4-finale]</p><p>Mako has the weekend off, but he has nothing to be happy about. Republic City is in ruins. His friends and his brother are all long gone. The summer heat is thick, sweltering. Worst of all, there are certain memories, a certain face he can't seem to shake.</p><p>Mom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pulpofiction (pifflapodus_scriptor)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pifflapodus_scriptor/gifts).



> This was written for my friend Francesca's (pulpofiction) birthday. She wanted some warmth with Naoki and Mako. I'm personally really interested in the character of Naoki--she's not mentioned at all in the series, and is only cursorily assigned a name in the artbook. I thought that was a real shame, and really wanted to un-fridge her. Hopefully I do a halfway decent job of that here!

Some days, he doesn’t think about her. Other days his memories of her are like shadows on the wall: commonplace, insubstantial. Like all shadows, his thoughts of her are crisp and delineated from a distance, yet become fuzzy and formless when he tries to bring himself closer. Recently, his thoughts of her are getting worse--that is, are cropping up more frequently. Mako isn’t sure why, but believes they might have something to do with the weather. Maybe he thinks about her more when the summer humidity turns the air torpid, sticky, slumbering? The heat renders his mind so porous, thoughts drip in and slide out beyond his control. When the sunlight seems particularly heavy, his daydreams _do_ have a tendency to wander back to her.

For the most part he has a sharp mind, keen for sordid details and picking holes in testimonies--at times even cruel, vicious toward wrongdoing. None of that means a thing, however--he reserves none of his cleverness for himself. Without fail, in matters of his own heart Mako is baffled every time.

 _Mom_.

What he remembers of her is imperfect, coming back as smooth-edged fragments, impossible to piece together. Her face is easy enough to recall--her face is more or less his face, and he sees her in the mirror every day. It’s the immaterial aspects of her that are difficult: the quality of her voice had a precise huskiness to it pitched even lower than his own, but now he can only remember it (vaguely) when he pays attention to the rasp of the motorbikes as they race each other beneath his bedroom window. He can barely remember how she smelled, either. There had been notes of sea salt maybe, a spiciness from a muscle balm she used to swear by (chronic joint pain? fingers or elbows? both? he knew once but now no longer).

Mako _wants_ to remember the way she held her mouth when she looked at his father. Had she ever winked at him and Bolin, or was her teasing only ever reserved for Dad? Had she even been the teasing sort at all? Mako frowns. Shadows, humid air--close analogies for her, the vague ghost in his head, but not quite right. No, everything he remembers about her is waterlogged. 

He is 22 now, and what he considers his true (albeit truncated) childhood seems so distant it might was well have belonged to someone else. Mako is not the boy he was. There’s too much blood and dirt beneath his fingernails now, too many callouses and scars and scrapes and aches--of body and of spirit--for him to reconcile his squint-eyed reflection with the open-faced boy in the family picture. Sometimes he’s not even sure if memories of her are worth preserving. He thinks he might corrupt what’s left of her, if keeping her memory alive means keeping her within battered, compromised him. He’d fallen so quickly, after all, from mama’s boy to criminal lackey--necessary for survival, but shameful, too. He doesn’t know if she would have understood. 

What he does know is that it’s painful to have loved someone (to continue loving someone) you can barely remember. It’s painful also to know that the person you loved had loved a different you, so radically different as to be unrecognizable. If Naoki saw him now, would she see her little boy? Mako doesn’t think so. He’s 22, but largely he measures his years in terms of _before_ and _after_ \--and those eight short, sweet years with her are now outstripped by fourteen years of living without.

Mako lies in bed, unwilling to face the long stretch of weekend before him. He hates time off--especially on hazy summer days like this. There’s no real sun outside, only the wet heat of the city and a sickly gray shine emanating through the cloud cover. Somewhere beyond his window birds are chattering in the spirit vines, greeting the morning as only the most obnoxious are able to do. A relief barge honks out in the bay, the moist air particularly conducive today to loud, sleep-shattering noises. A cabbagecar wheezes up the hill past his apartment, and he can hear the couple one apartment below him arguing over who owes who for groceries.

Mako presses his fists against his forehead, as if by applying pressure above his eyes he will stop all the noise against his ears. He wants to go back to sleep. Mako grimaces--his knuckles are bony--and tries to feel tired. He’d prefer to sleep through the weekend, as it’s the next best thing to not having a weekend at all. If he’s asleep he has no time or space for thinking or remembering, and he knows that if he dreams of her he’ll forget about it by morning. Mako squeezes his eyes tighter.

But the barge honks again, and the humidity brings her face into the blackness behind his eyes. It’s another one of _those_ days.

Mako huffs, and in one arc swings himself out of bed. Gray light falls through his windows in uneven beams, spotlighting the pockmarks in his floor where a previous tenant ripped out the carpet. Since the _calamity_ , cheap (in all senses of the word) real estate is abundant in Republic City. In fact, all the discerning, prestigious buildings of old downtown and ritzy uptown are no more. Only the outer boroughs survived. He doesn’t _really_ miss his old building and its stuffy doorman, but he has to admit it’s inconvenient that his old place is now level with the sidewalk. At least his new apartment is spacious enough that he can excuse its dinginess. And even if he had the mind to, he can’t really complain--technically he’s squatting. And technically, the landlord has yet to join the cautious trickle of returning evacuees. Shuffling across the floor, Mako stubs his toe against an exposed nail.

Gritting his teeth, Mako slumps against his kitchen counter. He has been up for all of a minute and walked exactly five feet, and he’s already in a sour mood. He wants something to eat, something to drink, but his hot plate remains resolutely cold no matter how hard he jerks the dial 

“Stupid junk.”  Mako glares at the device with a cocked eyebrow and the mental note to toss it out later. But just as he starts to heat his kettle by hand, he groans, realization hitting him in the gut, feeling not unlike a stubbed toe. As if on cue, there comes a timid knock at his door.

 “Sir?” The voice is muffled in addition to disembodied.

 “Sorry!” Mako bolts upright, wipes the sleep from his eyes, and hastily tries to flatten his hair. Scrambling, he grabs a discarded work shirt off his kitchen chair and swings it on, doing the buttons up all wrong so that by the time he opens the door, one tail of his shirt hangs lower than the other. “How long have you all been waiting?”

 His neighbor from across the hall takes one look at him--frenzied rictus smile (unconsciously worn and inappropriate given the circumstances), disheveled attire--and ducks apologetically. “Not long at all.”

Mako can feel the lie about as easily as he can feel it’s about 11 o’clock. “I slept in,” he winces, “I completely forgot.” Mako lurches out his doorway and in his rush neglects his shoes; the two of them make their way down the hall, passing doorways left open to keep air in circulation. The faces of Floor 2, 122 Trade St. stare out curiously at his bare feet and frenetic hair, and it’s all Mako can do to pretend as though he’s _not_ terribly embarrassed and terribly sorry. As he passes the apartment nearest the service stairwell, the disembodied voice of one tenant exclaims, “About time! 

The outer boroughs survived the invasion, but just barely. Like other neighborhoods, the Lamyai Quays, bounded by Trade St. on the south side and spirit wilds to the north, lack electricity. The city’s recovery progresses in fits and starts, and is patchy at best. For the most part, whether a building has electricity depends on whether or not it has a lightningbender in it. 

Mako apologizes again once they’re in the basement. “I’m so sorry,” he says, twisting out of his stance to look at Mr. Tep. “I don’t know--it’s so hot, I just couldn’t wake up--” Mako bites his lower lip. He’s been tired lately, and not just because work has been a nightmare. Some nights he can’t sleep at all, other nights he’s out cold. It’s like his body doesn’t know what to do with itself anymore. 

 _Well, of course_ , he thinks. He’s spent the last few days fishing intrepid children out of open sewer mains and stepping over still-live wires. He’ll oversee the de-evacuation of a neighborhood one hour only to re-evacuate it again the next--foundation cracks, gas leaks, angry nests of spirits in an attic is right anymore. _I’ll sleep better when things make sense_. 

“You’re fine, son,” says Mr. Tep.

Mako blinks, refocusing. Mr. Tep’s tone is quiet but rough-backed, a contrast of amusement and approbation that is mirrored in his old, lined eyes. On his part, Mako is both grateful and resentful of the scrap of pity he sees in Mr. Tep’s wrinkled stare. “Right. Sorry again.” 

Mako resumes his stance, and takes a preparatory breath.

 


	2. middle

By the time the generator is alive and the tenants of 122 Trade St. can  _at last_ go about their day, Mako is sweating, fatigued, and in no mood to stand in his kitchen waiting for rice to boil. He makes a quick stop at his apartment, changes his shirt and lace on his shoes, splashes some water on his face and the back of his neck, and hopes he’s presentable enough for the outside world. Mako can already feel a pool of sweat soaking through the back of his shirt--he’d dab a bit of cologne on himself if he had any, but even his preferred drugstore swill has run out. Relief campaigns are supplying only the necessities (as if one-yuan aftershave and flimsy cigarettes are the height of luxury) and even then the distribution schedules are uneven and unreliable. Many neighborhoods have shifted to subsistence living, and now in the Lamyai Quays, which up until a few weeks ago saw the largest import of Fire Nation produce this side of the Great Divide, fishing is the people’s main lifeline.

Mako takes the elevator to the lobby instead of the stairs--despite the short flight down, he wants to feel good about  _something_  today. He allows himself a tight smile as the elevator dings its arrival, and his smile even reaches his eyes as he listens for the mechanical whir of gears, and behind that, the buzzing of electricity.  _I did this._ It’s a small thing of course, but in a city where everything has gone wrong, Mako feels comforted that he has it within his power to fix at least one thing. The elevator dings again, and Mako steps out into the lobby.

Out of habit, Mako begins to tug his hat down at the doorman--but he has no hat, and the building has no doorman. He grinds his teeth--he’s been here for  _weeks_  now, he should  _know this_ , and yet he doesn’t. He keeps forgetting where and when he is; the sense of dislocation makes him feel itchy, ill at ease. As he exits the building, Mako stuffs his hands into his pockets and curls his shoulders into his chest.  _I’ve been so out of it lately_. 

Before he gets too far down the street, Mako stops in front of window. The glass is only a little broken, the storefront behind it only moderately empty. The proprietor of this shop, like the landlord of 122, has yet to return from the refugee camps. Mako knows he has standing orders to “prevent any unlawful seizure of private property, destruction of private property, or actions thereof” (Emergency Measure 18-3-45), but it’s his personal belief that nobody should spend a night in a holding cell for canned peaches.

(The unlawfully seized peaches were good--he knows because the family down the hall in 215 shared theirs with him.)

Mako bends down to scrutinize himself in a jagged snare of glass, squinting as he runs his fingers through his hair to comb it back. There are violet half-moons beneath his eyes, and a network of bright red capillaries crisscross the white within them. His cheeks are gaunt, skin stretched between high-reaching bones, and his face has an ashen, sweated pallor to it--water service has been intermittent, and he hasn’t showered since three days before. He has all the debonair charm of a nightmare, but Mako laughs as he gives his hair one last impromptu comb.  _I’m not the only one_ , he thinks, his footfalls crunching through broken glass as he makes room on the sidewalk for a neighbor. The woman looks as though she’s wearing all her finery, though her gold and diamonds are liberally caked with dirt. Mako eyes the dirt beneath her fingernails, and notes the scent of hot, moist soil that trails after her as she walks.  _She must have buried her jewels before evacuating._   _She’s lucky her stash was where she left it._

Mako picks his way down Trade St. toward the docks. Without his knowing, Mako’s posture eases as the smell of salt water and the muted roar of breakers intensifies, his shoulders sliding down from his neck as his back uncurves. By the time he can feel the cool ocean air on his face, he feels lighter, less chronically tense-- _almost_  happier. A short, steep hill demarcates the neighborhood from the quays proper, and he stops at the lip of the incline, perched on his heels with the tips of his shoes suspended in open air. Air Temple Island rises out of the water down to the south. Mako shades his eyes as he tries to pick out the air bison that float lazily around the tower. From this distance they look like puffs of ash; at this thought Mako swallows hard, and a little bit of tension creeps back into the muscles between his neck and shoulders.

Mako rubs his eyes, and shifts his gaze to the island itself. He’s too far to see anything recognizable, but he tries anyway to make out the decorations from the wedding party.  _It’s good Varrick and Zhu Li held it on the island_ , he thinks, and opens his mouth slightly to taste the salt on the air.  _Away from the city_. He can’t quite process the wedding-- _It doesn’t really fit_ , he thinks, ears alert to the groaning, empty ruins of the broken towers to the south of him. Nor does it fit with the groaning, empty-eyed people who returned to find their homes and hearts smashed to nothing. Mako feels as though the wedding, all beautiful and bright and joyous, happened somewhere outside of normal time and space. Like Air Temple Island itself, that happy time was not a  _true_  part of Republic City. Republic City, more grim and more real, stands apart 

Abruptly, his stomach twists in hunger, and Mako startles out of his thoughts. He looks around, embarrassed to have been so pensive in such a public place--he hates to feel vulnerable. He rubs the back of his neck with a harsh zeal, and carefully shuffles down the slope.  _Well, I_ know  _the wedding and Air Temple Island are real_ , he thinks.  _They let me use their showers before the ceremony._

That thought is enough to banish whatever softness the stupid humidity dripped into him, and Mako feels almost back to his dry, normal self by the time he reaches the docks. In the week since the start of de-evacuation, the Lamyai Quays have transformed from a thoroughly commercial operation to a quaintly bizarre fishing village. Quaint in that somehow the residents of the Quays managed to preserve wood and skin boats through the invasion; bizarre in that there are Water Tribe umiaks floating alongside Fire Nation bancas. Tiger seal skin knocks against bamboo outriggers, and Mako even spots a few fishing junks of Earth Kingdom design further out into the bay. In Republic City it’s not at all unusual for people of different nations to live alongside one another, but Mako has never seen so many types of old-fashioned fishing boats together at once.

For a second he feels dazed, and he’s reminded of the wedding ceremony on Air Temple Island--he feels out of time and place, as though he’s no longer in Republic City in the present, but somewhere in its past where the world has folded in on itself and churned together. There should be merchant barges--huge metal boats gleaming, flags flapping--out in the water, but instead the flotilla of little fishing boats made of sticks and skins looks like something out of a children’s storybook. 

A sudden rush of anger fills him. He  _hates_  this--he wants his real city back, his real life back. He wants the skyscrapers and coughing smokestacks, he wants his old apartment back, his real job back. He wants the home he recognizes. 

Mako shakes his head.  _I let myself get too hungry._

Mako rolls his shoulders as if to dislodge the bad mood that has taken root in him, and then takes off toward the strand. He walks north along, feigning interest in the boats laden with mackerel and perch and flounder with weeping scales and weakly-flapping gills, crabs waving their claws angrily. Some of the fisherfolk call out to him, offering handfuls of clams or tangled knots of seaweed. A particularly insistent one runs up to Mako and shoves a crab claw beneath his nose. But Mako has no patience to cook today, and so he walks on. As he nears the heart of the docks, the smell of fried fish overcrowds the smell of salt and water. An array of stalls are set out in a central square--this is what he’s been looking for. 

Mako scans the stalls--fried noodles with fish, buns stuffed with fish, steamed fish, barbequed fish, fish curry--he’s about to resign himself to fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner until he spots a sign for siomai. Mako feels a twang in his gut, but it’s not hunger.  _If Bo were here_ …

For as long as Mako could remember his brother Bolin had the unnatural ability to over-glut himself on dumplings of any kind, but  _especially_  steamed dumplings. More recently, Bolin also developed an appetite for travel, and had left the city shortly after the wedding for a relief mission back in the Earth Kingdom. “Somebody has to clean up Kuvira’s mess,” Bolin winked.

Although Mako loves his brother, he believes it will be Opal doing the majority of the cleaning, and he’d said as much before the two of them left. As well, (and privately,  _privately_ ) Mako believes that Bolin is even less able to stomach the destruction of Republic City than he himself; Mako does not say as much, but rather keeps it to himself. Mako has been keeping a lot quiet for the past few weeks, because everybody is leaving, everybody is trying to look away. First it was wedding preparations, then it’s a relief mission, or an assignment to the Northern Air Temple, one thing after another after another.

But he can’t blame anyone. He would look away too if he could, and after the Colossus he’s been told he deserves a vacation of his own--it would be healthier for him, surely. But Mako supposes he’s a sucker for self-flagellation, for burying himself in too deep for too long, and so he’s stayed and he hasn’t looked away. And perhaps because of all that, Mako makes his way over to the siomai stall even though he really, truly prefers fried noodles.

The stall is shunted off to the side of the square. As Mako gets closer, he sees it’s a rusting tin bathtub outfitted with fraying broadcloth roof. It’s better days seem a solid decade behind the other food stalls--an accomplishment, considering the majority of them seem as though they were already dilapidated in the time of Aang. A woman leans heavily on her forearms against the counter, the dark, dense cloud of her head bowed low to expose the bare, sweat-shining nape of her neck. For all he knows she could be asleep, but somehow he feels the same.

She must have heard him coming, as before he can say anything she stands abruptly and begins fiddling with the lids of her steamers. Her face looks as though it was once round and full, but fatigue has drawn out the blunt lines of her face from her ears to her mouth. She squints down the bridge of her nose, and does not look up at even after he says hello.

“We’re out of fish,” she says. She juts out her lips and chin to gesture at an empty bamboo steamer, still not looking at him. “Chickenpork only.”

“That’s fine,” Mako replies. Although Bolin loves steamed dumplings, for the first time in days he’s glad Bolin is not here right now--his little brother has an odd, grating way of taking offense at anyone not immediately and reciprocally friendly. Mako thinks it has to do something with Bolin needing reassurance, or having an expectation that his boundless energy can and should be matched. The woman at the stall could be rude or tired or both; Mako doesn’t know and doesn’t particularly care. He understands the stiff, intractable line of her mouth the same way he understands she has no more fish siomai: sometimes you just run out, of food, of social niceties, of energy to care.

The woman nods, and begins to prepare him a small plate.

“Although--”

The woman pauses, and though her face is looking down he can see a muscle in her jaw twitch, her nostrils flaring as she exhales sharply.

“Sorry.” The cop in him comes to the forefront, and without realizing it he stands straighter. “I guess I’m just wondering how you have chickenpork. I didn’t see that listed on the any of the ration lists.” Mako has no intention of actually  _doing_  anything, but if there is a black market in his own neighborhood he’d at least like to know about it.

Exhaling again, the woman looks up--impressively managing to avoid looking him--as though she’ll find a reserve of patience on the underside of the broadcloth. “We killed our chickenpig yesterday,” she says, and then looks down at the steamers once again.

“Oh.” Mako squints, trying to think. Increasingly he’s finding it easier to compartmentalize the spaces within him, a dominant “work” self and the not-quite-stamped-out “other.” There is something comforting about slipping into his “work” mindset on his off days. He likes the regularity of procedure, the solidity of facts against facts. Mako knows the only housing available in the Lamyai Quays is block apartments. He has the city layout memorized, and also knows the nearest farm is a 2-hour train ride away. “You raise chickenpigs… in your apartment?”

Again, he has no real intention of actually  _doing_  anything if the woman is in fact breaking muni-code 28-5-2. Yet it  _specifically_  designates: “Buildings for the raising or housing of swine shall be designed and constructed separate from--”

He’s cut off mid-thought by the corner of her mouth raising in distaste.

“And you don’t?” She still refuses to look up at him, but somehow this makes her counter even worse.

“I--” he frowns. “No? I was relocated here not too long ago.” Maybe it’s a Quays thing. Republic City is sprawling enough that each neighborhood has its peculiarities: in the foundry neighborhood of Takacho they use charcoal powder to brush their teeth, and most of the buildings in the old Water Tribe enclaves are round-roofed. Mako supposes that even the fashions, parties, and excesses of the downtown penthouses are a peculiarity of sorts to be tolerated by the outer boroughs. That is,  _were_  tolerated.

But the woman offers nothing, only silently adds another dumpling to his tray, and Mako wonders if it’s just her.

“Sauce?” she asks abruptly.

“Just soy sauce is fine. Vinegar, too, if you ha--”

“No. Only peanut or calamansi.”

“Oh, I, um. Alright--” Mako is about to say calamansi is fine, thanks, but evidently he’s annoyed her enough so as to hit a nerve.

She sets his plate down and sighs heavily. “Look, I know you’re not from around here, but let me just tell you that everything in the Quays is gonna be Fire Nation style or--” At that, the woman finally turns her face up toward him, and then stops talking.

They stare at each other. Mako makes himself wait thirty seconds before venturing, “I’m sorry. You were saying something?”

She does not answer, but continues to stare at him with her brows raised and her jaw slack. She doesn’t look much older than him, only shorter and with a growing light of comprehension in her eyes that is completely lacking in his. Her mouth starts to move, and she’s mouthing something. “Muh… Mah…”

“Excuse me?”  
  
“Mako?” she says finally, cocking her head and smiling.

Mako can’t help but grimace, and he looks over his shoulder briefly, wondering if she’s talking to someone else behind him or if he’s been caught up in some sort of prank. “You mean me? Me, Mako?”

The woman smacks a hand to her forehead and laughs. “Spirits! I had no idea until now--hold on, just a sec--” And with an abruptness even more dizzying than her change in mood, she turns, cups her hands around her mouth, and bellows toward the dock behind her. “MOM!” she yells, and Mako is taken aback that someone as short as she could contain that much noise.

An older woman stands up from the dock, drops the octopus she’d been cleaning into a bucket, and makes her way toward them. As she draws closer, Mako sees that the rough front of her work shirt and the tips of her fingers are stained black with ink, as is the blade of her knife tucked into her belt. The older woman comes to stand next to the younger woman, and two pairs of yellow eyes stare up at them. They look almost identical--dark brown skin, thickly curly black hair, wide mouths open slightly in large-toothed smiles.But the  _almost_  is key--the older woman is thin and wiry, her hair cropped close to her forehead, and when she smiles her teeth are faintly red, betel-stained. The younger woman is taller, plumper, her hair framing her face, and when she reaches her hand out for him to shake, it’s soft.

The older woman follows suit, and Mako has to keep himself quiet as the ink transfers off her onto him. “I, uh, it’s a pleasure?”

The older woman hoots, slapping her thigh dangerously close to the edge of her knife. “You don’t remember your auntie Tamsi?” The older woman--Tamsi--stares up at him, her eyes wide and expectant as though he’ll break out into a hug at any moment.

Mako feels his face turning red, and he swallows, trying to keep his mouth from getting dry. The people in the food stalls nearby are looking at him; this is more than he bargained for, he hadn’t even really  _wanted_  siomai, after all. “No?”

“What?” Tamsi screams in laughter, doubling over and almost knocking down one of the steamers. “I can’t believe it!” She elbows the younger woman. “I used to wash his ass when he was this--” she motions to the air by her knee “--tall, Juni! And he doesn’t remember!”

“Mother,  _please_.” The younger woman pats Tamsi on the back with jerky movements, as if trying to see if Tamsi might be shut off, or at least quieted. But Tamsi continues to howl, and the younger woman rolls her eyes. “I’m Juni,” says the younger woman, offering her hand out to him again. “And you’ve met my dignified mother.”

Mako nods, but does not shake her hand--he’s clutching his right elbow with his left hand, and has the other hand clasped tightly over his mouth, as if by covering himself he can somehow disappear from sight. “A pleasure,” he repeats, muffled 

Tamsi gives her thigh one more smack, and then straightens up, wheezing. “Well you  _did_  just blow up a giant robot! I guess after that it’s easy to forget little old us!"

Juni offers Mako a hapless, apologetic shrug, and then leans towards her mother. “Don’t be rude!” she hisses.

“What? I didn’t say it rudely!” Tamsi looks to Mako, palms raised up toward the sky and eyes wide as though she cannot believe her martyrdom. “I didn’t say it rudely. Did I say it rudely? Did I sound rude to you?”

This is all too much for Mako--he’s not curious as to how they know him (or,  _spirits forbid,_  if Tamsi really did wash his-- _spirits_ ) as he is mindful of a new, urgent need to get back to his apartment as quickly as possible. And then once there, never leave,  _ever_. Without answering, he withdraws a few yuans from his pocket and places them in Tamsi’s open hand. “Thank you,” he says, lightly and mechanically, takes his plate, and turns to go.

“Hey!” Tamsi jogs around the stall and shoves the yuans back into his free hand. “What d’you think you’re doing?” She’s comically tiny compared to him, no more than five feet to her--but there’s strength in the way she places her hands on her hips, and real anger in the jut-lipped glare she fixes on him.

“What,  _paying_  you?” he asks incredulously.

Tamsi exhales a sharp, furious burst of air out her nose, and he sees where Juni got her manners. “You don’t pay.” She’s a loud woman with a grating voice and an almost frightening intensity to her sense of humor, but there’s a sincerity in her voice that softens something in Mako. “You’re Naoki’s boy.”

 _Naoki’s boy_.

The air is hot and wraps around him slowly, the languorous movement of the clouds in the gray sky above are as slow as his breathing. Mako’s blush falls away, but his mouth, his throat become dry. He stares down at Tamsi--without meaning to his eyes narrow and his jaw sets, his expression turning harsh. But Tamsi stares back up at him with a kind of defiance, as if daring him not to remember.

“You knew my mother?” he asks, finally.

Tamsi snorts. “Knew her? I was her best friend in the whole world!”

Juni slips between the two of them--Mako hadn’t noticed her leaving the stall. She glances up into Mako’s eyes, but there is caution in her appraisal instead of her mother’s defiance. She stares at his mouth, where his teeth are coming close to puncturing his lower lip, and at the tense space between his brows. But there’s too much heat in the air, too much moisture for him to care about or notice her scrutiny or the way her worry-eyed expression shifts slightly to mirror his own. Mako just wants to get back home, he can’t really think--can’t think at all.

Then Juni shrugs and shakes her head at her mother, attempting a smile. “I wouldn’t say that. Naoki’s best friend was either you or Ukiuk-- 

“What?  _Ukiuk_? That old bear?” Tamsi doubles over again; it seems she’s the type to laugh out her disbelief.

Somehow, Tamsi’s laughter breaks the thickness of the heat, and Mako blinks, trying to clear his head. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Juni frowning at him again, and he remembers that he needs to breath.

“I”m sorry,” he offers, rubbing the back of his neck. Mako frowns--the texture of his hand feeling not-quite-right--and realizes he’s still holding the yuans. He stuffs them in his pocket, crumpled. “As I get older, I guess I forget stuff. 

Tamsi knocks her elbow at him, and he’s surprised at the force behind her skinny arm. “I’m not stuff, boy! You’re talking to the best pearl diver in the city! Well, after your old lady, of course. Or have you forgotten that, too?" 

“Sorry,” he says again, wondering if he’ll be fortunate enough to die when he gets home-- _if_  he gets home. “I guess I have forgotten.” 

“Decent fisher, too,” Tamsi says ponderously, and by the growing smile on her face it’s obvious that not only is she used to talking to herself, but also that she takes great pleasure in reminiscing. “Shit with octopus, though. No patience for it. Not that I have any either, but I’m a lot slower than I used to be. And forgetful!” She starts laughing again, jabbing at him with her elbow in such a way he gathers he’s just been invited to laugh along with her. However, Mako has no idea what being slow or forgetful has to do with octopus fishing, so he just nods. 

Juni looks from her mother to him and clears her throat. “You should visit us sometime!” She lowers her chin and stares up at him meaningfully from beneath her brows.

“What? Oh!” Mako jerks step away from the still-laughing Tamsi. “Of course. I have to get going now, but I”ll, uh--” he lifts his plate of siomai, which somehow seem to have wilted in the humidity. “Definitely be back! For more. Of, uh.” He stares down at his food, and realizes he can’t think of anything more unappetizing than siomai right now. “This.”

“We’re at 449 Trade, third floor, number 14 ,” says Juni. She has her mother by the shoulders, and is shuffling Tamsi back to the octopus bucket. As soon as she’s facing the dock, Tamsi lets out a yell and barrels back toward the water--an octopus is wobbling up the side of the bucket toward escape.

“122 Trade,” Mako replies. He really does intend to visit them; if Tamsi was a friend of his mother’s, seeing her again at least once is the polite thing to do. “I guess I’m just down the street from you.”

“Oh!” Juni smiles with tightness that Mako can only assume is out of strained patience. Behind her, Tamsi is plunging and waving her dagger haphazardly after the octopus. “That’s where you lived before! How nice.”

Mako starts-- _What?_ \--but before he can say anything, Juni turns away and rushes toward her mother. Her softer voice weaves through the gaps of sound that Tamsi’s yelling fails to fill, as Juni tries to get her mother to put down the knife. Mako stands alone, watching them. Juni handles her mother with exasperation, but there is fondness in her eyes and hands that could only come from loving someone for a very long time, such that a person’s loud-voiced, knife-waving, ink-stained, betel-toothed antics are by affection transformed into something bearable--beautiful, even. Mako continues to watch them for a moment longer. Then he, too, turns away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The character of Juni is a joint creation of Francesca and I. Tamsi is more my own, but belongs to the same continuation-AU 'verse we cooked up.


	3. something of an ending

Mako walks back to his apartment with as much lucidity as the sweating pavement. The sun has yet to come out from behind the drab clouds, but the day is hotter now, stretching past noon. He looks even more disheveled than he did in the morning--sweating terribly, sleeves rolled up to his forearms, shirt hanging open three buttons from the top, hair mussed from where he rubbed his head, dazed. The siomai he bought are long since discarded, relinquished to some kids he passed on the street. Mako lost his appetite.

He can’t quite wrap his head around it: the knowledge that once his mother was not only alive, but had a job (pearl diver? fisher?), friends (Tamsi, Ukiuk, who knew how many more?), a place to live (that was in the same building he lived in now?). For so long he’d only thought of her as a missing part of  _his_  life, he’d forgotten to consider the simple truth that once, she had her own.

How could he have forgotten so much?

Now more than ever he wishes he could remember her. If she had such a gregarious friend as Tamsi, did that mean his mother had been just as unruly? Or had they balanced each other out? If she’d worked in and around water, she must have been a powerful swimmer. But in the picture Grandma Yin gave him she looked svelte, demure--he can’t rectify the smiling woman in the photograph with the woman Tamsi spoke about. Mako kicks at a stray pebble, his nose wrinkling as he exhales. Why can’t he remember more?

He passes the empty storefront by his apartment, and pauses in front of it. Although he feels worse than he did this morning, his reflection somehow looks healthier, his eyes less shot through with red. Mako steps closer toward the jagged glass, scrutinizing himself. Long nose and sharp jaw; yellow eyes and angular brows. Normal. Then he blinks, and for a heartbeat Mako’s reflection blurs and shifts into something different:  the new reflection has softer brows, longer hair, is smiling where he was scowling.

Mako stumbles back and away, and he  _swears_  the errant reflection stays where it is, lifting its chin proudly as he ducks his head to run back into his apartment.

Once inside, Mako tries to steady his breathing. Part of the wall by the elevator is mirrored--although a part of him feels hollow and worry-churned about the storefront window phantom, Mako presses his teeth together firmly and walks up to the mirror. The reflection is his own. Without taking his eyes off the mirror, Mako calls the elevator, and only looks away when the doors chime open.

As the elevator car labors upward, Mako considers what Juni had said--had his family really lived here before? Mako closes his eyes, trying to remember his childhood bedroom, his family’s kitchen, anything. But what swells to the surface of his memories are the ratty, lice-infested cots at the orphanage, Bolin crying in a mouldy, rotting stairwell. When he tries to push beyond those memories, all there is is fire. The elevator doors slide open to his floor, and Mako, eyes still closed, winces as he passes into his hallway.

He starts to fumble with his front door, only to fall forward into his apartment. He’d left his door unlocked. Sighing, Mako checks his belongings mechanically--unconcerned partly because he does not have much of value, partly because he doubts the other tenants would think to have a look in his place. They know he’s a cop, and outside of asking him to start up the generator each morning, they largely leave him alone. 

Nothing seems to be missing, so Mako leaves his door open and goes to open his windows. There’s no breeze, but after peeling his clothes off down to his underwear, he sits on his bed by a window anyway, in a faint demonstration of hope. With nothing better to do and no appetite, he lights himself an old cigarette (itself not much more than a stub between his fingers) and decides he’ll just sit until it’s time to go to sleep.

He wants his mind to be empty of everything but cigarette smoke, but as he settles to the quiet of his apartment and the uneven hum of the shoreline, his head fills with sharp-edged, disturbed thoughts. How could he have forgotten so much? Or rather, why is it that he can remember everything bad and painful, and have retained so little of anything good?

Yet as upset as he is, Mako knows the answer. When he was younger he’d told himself to stay afraid, to stay angry, that caution would keep him alive. Bolin cried too much in the orphanage so he took them out on the streets. And then Bolin stopped crying as much, but then came the days were Mako himself wished it would all end, when surviving was so exhausting that it became tempting to curl up with all your good memories and never wake up. He’d  _made_  himself forget, because he’d known any softness might kill him. But if he kept rocks and sharp glass in his head, he would keep himself and his brother alive.

He imagines what might have happened if he and Bolin had turned up at their old apartment The sight alone of seeing new faces, a new family where they once lived might have ended them on the spot. Mako can’t regret his choice--he just wishes it hadn’t been so permanent. Back when he had his brother and his friends around him, when he was consumed with the living, pulsing presences of those he loved the bare spaces in his head did not bother him. But now that he’s by himself, the gaps and deficiencies are all the more glaring, troubling.

His father had liked to sit by the kitchen counter and fold newspapers into little toys--Mako remembers this clearly, but he doesn’t need it right now. Mako carried his father with him for years, deliberately, as if seeking penance for having lost him. He can remember more about San some days more than he can remember to take in his laundry. But he’s been carrying Naoki with him for years, in his face, in his eyes, in his fire--and he can barely recall a thing about her. There are pieces of his mother still alive, in him, in Tamsi, and with a rush of greed so fierce and sudden it scares him, Mako realizes he wants to remember them all.

Mako turns away from the window, studying the interior of his apartment. He can’t have  _lost_  his memories. If he tries hard enough, perhaps he’ll find them again. With the tip of his tongue poking out between his lips, Mako looks at the floor, trying to picture it covered with carpet. He feels strongly there had been gray carpet in his parent’s old place.  _No, wait_ \--that had been the orphanage. Mako closes his eyes, squeezing his face so violently it begins to hurt.  _Brown_. Brown carpet. His father used to joke about how ugly it was; his mother would always retort it didn’t show stains as bad.

_“Practical,” Naoki would shrug. Her voice was husky, deeper than San’s and even Mako’s now. When she spoke the sound hung like amber in the air, thick and resinous and golden._

_“No appreciation for beauty,” San would respond. His father liked to walk up behind his mother and wrap his arms around her waist. San’s head came up to Naoki’s shoulder, and he had to stand on his tiptoes to hook his chin over it. He would smile into her ear._

_And like a ritual, Naoki would mirror his smile and say, “That’s what I keep_ you _around for.” And then she would turn around to face him, and they would ki--_

Mako’s eyes shoot open. Swearing he presses his cigarette out against his windowsill--he’d been concentrating so hard he’d forgotten to mind it, and it had burned out onto his fingers. Mako blinks the smoke out of his eyes and stuffs the tips of his fingers into his mouth, sucking on them to ease the sting of fire--and also to still them from trembling. 

He feels as though something has opened inside of him, the front of his head blooming with recollections long buried. His family’s old apartment was on the fifth floor; Dad joked it was their penthouse suite and Mom liked the view of the ocean, their window just high enough for them to peer over the roofs of neighboring buildings. He and Bolin shared a bed, except for the time Bolin caught fever--Bolin had cried for their father, and so Mako spent the night with his head pressed to his mother’s heart, lulled to sleep by the rise and fall of her chest, sharing heat. Dad and Mom worked on alternating days so that someone would always be home with the children, but also because Dad was losing shifts at the train stations. San would joke that Naoki was putting him out of business, and though she laughed at all his other jokes Naoki never laughed at this one. In a way he was right. The electric railways that were supplanting the old earthbending-run lines were supported by the power plant where Naoki worked, and,  _yes_ , Mako remembered now how she hated her job. She had longed to return to the sea. In the summers she would take him down to the beach and teach him how to swim. He remembers how her skin would turn bronze in the sun, her black hair fanning out in the blue water, her strong arms supporting him. He was never afraid--not of the deepest water or the most towering wave--when he was with her. And when he would tire of the ocean, he would sit sprawling on the sand and watch his mother swim out past the breakers until she was nothing more than a speck on the horizon. He never worried because he always knew she would come back.

Slowly, Mako reaches a hand up to his face. The sun is setting behind the cloud cover, and the bones of his hand look soft, almost malleable in the gray light. He touches a finger to his face, and finds his cheek is wet. He moves away from the window and further into the shadows of his apartments, his form taking on harder lines as the light shifts around him. With more pressure than necessary, Mako wipes his face as though he’s trying to take the skin off his face. Then, silently he stands up and goes to his kitchen sink. He turns the faucet on, leaning heavily against the countertop as he waits for the water to turn from brown to gray to clear, and then wets the back of his neck. He closes his eyes, and brings a cupped handful of water up to his face.

The memories are rushing to the surface of him too quickly. Mako’s brow tenses as he tries to slow them and separate them. His mother used to tell him of her childhood, the hot long days in the Fire Nation’s outer islands, the boat she’d made and sunk all on her own. She’d told him stories of nights sitting out on a calm sea, when the sky and water were so equally black and starry she grew dizzy trying to tell them apart. Her own mother had repaired nets for the fishermen, her father had been a secret and then a shame to her, the governor of her island. Her entire girlhood was spent writhing to get out from his shadow, trying to claw herself free of scandal. She’d left home when she was still young and raw, so hopeful, confident that Republic City was made for her. But in the end, she told him, it was Republic City that made her, and Mako recalls the scars the flecked her arms and face. She’d been so brave and so strong, the tallest and surest person in their neighborhood by far. Mako remembers his mother’s temper and her pride, the way she could look across the street and pick a fight with a smirk. He remembers how she wanted the Quays to be safe for her sons, for her friends, for her husband. Naoki had appointed herself to make it so. His mother had seemed something out of a fairytale to him, equal parts dashing young hero and wise confidant. Mako realizes how much he’d hurt when she died. As a child he had always assumed she would be there to guide him, protect him. To love him. Life without her was unfathomable--and yet here he was.

He knots his hands together, pacing around his apartment in a daze. His head feels light, but he wants to remember more. His head is a fragile thing; something in the hot, thick air is giving him a headache. He feels as though he should lay down, but his bed, his apartment are too small to contain him. Barefoot for the second time today, Mako slips out of his apartment, heading for the service stairwell. He can remember--

_Dad and Bo sitting on the floor, playing with clay blocks. Bolin claps with delight every time San makes the blocks move and shift shape, and San smiles at each attempt Bolin makes to do the same. Mako sits across from them, his knobby knees tucked beneath his chin. What they’re doing is not for him--this is something he will never understand about his father, but he doesn’t mind. Mako curls into himself further. He doesn’t mind._

_Then he feels a hand on his shoulder. The touch is warm and calloused, comforting in its too-heaviness. Mako shoots up straight, twisting on his knees to face his mother. Naoki is home from work at last, her long hair unbound and sweat-drenched around the temples. She smiles and opens her arms, and when he hugs her she smells like faintly like a thunderstorm, sharp ozone mixed in with her sweat._

_San looks up from his game. “Dinner in an hour,” he grins, and blows Naoki a kiss._  

_Naoki crouches on the floor next to Mako. He hasn’t let go of her yet, clinging to her shoulder, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She rustles his hair absently, studying Bolin as he mashes a pair of clay blocks together. “You two look busy,” she remarks, jutting out with her chin to point at the growing mess on the floor._

_“Just earthbending stuff,” winks San._

_Mako can feel his mother begin to rumble a reply, but the lights flicker suddenly, and then shudder out. Bolin shrieks excitedly, flapping his arms up and down, while around them their frustrated neighbors let loose with a cacophony of groans and swears. For a split second, as their apartment lost power, Mako felt his mother’s arm wrap around him--as though she was afraid something might happen in the dark. Despite himself Mako smiles, glowing at the extra attention he’s been shown. He hasn’t been afraid of the dark for some time, not since Mom taught him how to light candles by snapping, but he’ll gladly pretend if it means more time with Mom. As his eyes adjust to the dark he looks up at her, the outline of her face and the bags beneath her eyes in the half-light of evening. He doesn’t like seeing her so worn out._

_“Damnit!” San stands up and begins to fumble around the apartment for candles._

_“Dad!” protests Mako, reluctantly moving from Mom’s side to cover Bolin’s ears. “Bad words!”_

_“Sorry, kiddo, just--_ spirits!”  _San trips over a toy block and falls face-forward on the couch._

 _Behind Mako, Naoki coughs forcefully, and even Bolin falls still. The emergency candles on the kitchen shelf flicker to life, revealing the orange-washed figure of his mother standing up laboriously, leaning heavily on her knees. Naoki sighs, and then motions to Mako. “Come on,” she says. She exhales with such a weariness that Mako can’t help but frown, his little forehead crinkling down into his brows. She holds her hand out to him, and he goes to her. “Let’s go to the basement._  

_San pushes himself halfway off the couch. “But you just got off work! C’mon, Naoki. Would it kill you to let the city handle things for once?”_

_She doesn’t answer, only retraces her steps to the door. She bends down to help Mako into his shoes--he can do it himself, but he doesn’t complain._

_Behind Mako, Bolin has resumed his play with the blocks. “Mama Mako going?” he asks, but his tone is that of childish disinterest. This isn’t the first time they’ve lost power._  

_Naoki, halfway out the door, pauses to wink over her shoulder. “Just firebending stuff.”_

_As they make their way to the service stairwell, Naoki pauses at each doorway. She doesn’t spend long talking with the neighbors, just exchanges tired greetings and general complaints about the building, the landlord, the damn power company. Mako watches his mother as she works to calm the other tenants, reassuring them of normalcy only she can provide. He loves his mother, but especially like this--when other people can see the way the sharp angles of her face melt into a smile, how her yellow eyes soften. She’d been so tired when she got home, but Mako can hardly tell now._

_“Thanks, Naoki,” says the man in number 25._

_“Not at all,” she replies. And then Mako and his mother descend down the service stairwell into the bowels of the building. He’d been warned not to come down here; it’s too dark and too damp, and he can see all the places where a little boy like him might fall and hurt himself. He walks closer behind his mother, his footsteps falling into hers._

_At last they come to a stop, and Mako blinks at the sudden change in light as his mother snaps a fire to her fingertips. Like the other sprawling apartment blocks in the Quays, their building has a standby generator. It sees frequent use, as shortages are a common occurrence in the outer boroughs. His mother comes down her regularly to start up the standby, but this is the first time she has brought Mako down with her._

_Naoki arranges herself into a lightningbending stance: legs wide and planted strongly into the ground, one hand pointed at the generator, the other into the dark space behind her. She closes her eyes and takes one deep breath, then another, and Mako finds himself holding his breath just as she looks as though she will start._

_But Naoki blinks her eyes open and turns to him._

_“Mako.” She smiles, and opens her hand out to him. “Do you want to help?”_

_He holds her hand_.

The memory twists, fading into mere sensations. He had not been able to lightningbend that night-- _of course not_ \--but he held his mother’s hand and felt the energy flow through her and through him, felt her life move and pulse and arc into light and power. He had smiled that night with the heat of lightning on his face, Mako remembers smiling--

There had been heat on another night too, a searing heat matched by red flame, the outline of a man in a dark alleyway, a shadow against the cracked wall thin and mercurial like flickering flame. Mako begins to remember the warmth of his mother’s hand against the anger of a stranger. Mako never had any trouble remembering the way his father fell, jaw slack and fingers curling and uncurling one last time. But as for the rest of that night, Mako thought he had pushed it out of his head long ago. Before, he could only remember turning and running and crying, clutching his father’s scarf on the floor of a police station hours later. But now he can feel the heat on his face again. Naoki’s arms had seemed to stretch all the way up to the sky--she’d brought up a wall of fire, she’d looked at him for a second and half an eternity. She had said something to him but the words were lost to the burning. Mako remembers this and more: the mortal terror, how sick and bitter his screaming tasted in the back of his throat, the hatred for himself as he looked away from his mother for the last time. What had she said to him? No feat of memory can recover those words. He’d screamed himself hoarse; he’d screamed her into silence. And then he remembers the misery of the days that followed, how he had made himself sick with fear. He couldn’t close his eyes; when he did he could only see her figure through a curtain of flame as she breathed herself into a fighter’s stance, brave even at the very end. He remembers her golden eyes, reflecting orange and red--she had tried to smile for him--he couldn’t sleep, could only cry, scratch at himself, vomit--

Now Mako remembers. He remembers, too, why he made himself forget.

 

 


	4. now it's (not really) over

Mako blinks, his adjusting to the dim light of the basement. Without realizing, he’s walked all the way down the service stairwell. He can’t recall so much as opening the door to the generator room, but here he is. It’s much how he left it this morning: dusty in the corners, the generator humming with energy. In a few hours, it will go out, and the building will go to sleep.

Mako steps lightly across the bare floor. Somewhere above him, outside the red-brick confines of his building, the heat is finally breaking, rolling into a thundering summer storm. He looks down at the ground, shifting his feet this way and that until he exhales lightly, satisfied.

“Mom stood right here,” he says to nobody.

Mako remains that way, staring at the ground. He thought he had forgotten her. But how ridiculous it seems now, to think he could ever leave her behind, or that she would ever truly be gone. Remembering her  _hurts_  in an unfamiliar way. Mako has been so used to forgetting, willfully ignoring the uncomfortable, the painful. In some ways, he supposes, it was easier to try and forget her. His good memories are sweet, but the bad memories are still raw, as painful as the night they were formed. But she’s everywhere in this city--in his face, in the buildings, the people in the streets. Mako inhales deeply, smelling a faint shade of ozone mixed in with his own sweat. As long as he’s alive, so is she.

Eventually, his feet grow tired, and he folds himself down, sitting in the darkness of the basement. He stares at the generator and at nothing. Finally, the air feels cooler.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very, very belated birthday fic for Francesca. The idea for this fic comes from discussions we had while on a road trip (because what else do you do while you road-trip than talk about fictional ppl). I always thought it was kinda outrageous that San, Mako and Bolin’s father, was given attention in the show, whereas their mother was really only given a name in an art book. Otherwise she was barely brought up at all. 
> 
> Francesca and I talked a lot about who Naoki was, and if some of the details I mention in this fic seem as though they’re just a little sparse, that’s because they are. There is a lot about our conception of Naoki that was left out of this, but idk. I think this works as is?? I’m not sure if I’ll ever revisit LoK fanfic again, so I’ll leave it up to Francesca to talk about who Naoki was/is for now. But the gist of her character was that she was this larger-than-life woman from the outer islands of the Fire Nation, who came to Republic City because she outgrew her hometown. 
> 
> One of the other characters are joint inventions of Francesca and I--Juni is meant to be someone who discovers they’re an airbender in the B3 storyline. We thought it might be interesting to have someone who ultimately elected not to join the Air Nation. Obviously that’s not really explored here, and she works as a nonbender, too. Juni’s mom Tamsi is more of my own creation--she was younger than Naoki, and kind of the scrappy sidekick figure.
> 
> The title is taken from the song “Moonbeam Levels” by Prince, which I had on repeat while writing this.
> 
> Anyway, if you liked this fic I’m really glad! Wish Francesca a happy belated birthday!!!!


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